REVIEW OF ZOOLANDER 2

Review of ZOOLANDER 2 starring Ben Stiller & Owen Wilson & Penélope Cruz & Will Ferrell

What should be called BOOLANDER is nothing but (a movie not even worth reviewing. While the original had moments, it was an overrated mess cleaned up by the additively humorous persona of Ben Stiller, sucking in his cheeks and being the ultimate airhead male supermodel, with most of the jokes centering on a guy who thinks he's flawless while being a complete dolt: an Inspector Clouseau of the modeling world.

Ben Stiller

This time around it's an all-out exterior James Bond type feature in the Roger Moore vein, with not one laugh to be found, anywhere. Even Owen Wilson's almost-equally vapid Hansel seems like he's along for a rollercoaster ride that's been shut down for repairs, and there's no fixing this disaster... which doesn't even have that much energy. The tale begins with Zoolander as a bearded recluse... his wife is dead and his son missing... and given a new mission, winds up finding the boy isn't very perfect and eventually goes up against a goofy villain in Will Ferrell, who can usually be humorous even in bad, unfunny vehicles. Meanwhile, dead famous people are leaving behind Instagram photos imitating Zoolander's sunken-faced expression... and the biggest inside joke is the prologue death of Justin Bieber, basically admitting that everyone wants him to... just go away, forever; getting shot more times than Sonny Corelone.

The main problem is that the joke isn't on our oblivious hero being a stupid model... revenge for girls viewed that way: the prettier, the dumber. All that made ZOOLANDER mean something, showing the silliest of ignorant dudes enjoying an actual gig with an adventure on the side; herein replaced with a zig-zag of convoluted plot-lines, forgetting what and who we're supposed to poke fun at, providing extreme torture for those who didn't think the original was all that great, like yours truly, and probably feeling like a 90-minute Super Bowl ad for those anticipating... what they came for the second time around, and won't get no matter how badly they want to enjoy ZOOLANDER) NO. 2!

RATING: *